jaanavi

“Victims can still be enemies.”
― James Islington, The Will of the Many

“Every fairy tale has blood flecked on its muzzle. Sometimes it’s licked up in the second before the story begins— a queen slowly bleeding out onto her birthing bed, a plague having laid waste to a land before “Once upon a time” slouches from the dark. But every so often, one can trace the thick flow of blood as it seeps from the pages.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride

“If you combed through enough fairy tales, untangled their roots, and shook out their branches, you would find that they are infested with oaths. Oaths are brittle things, not unlike an egg. Though they go by different names depending on the myth— troths and geis, vows and tynged— there is one thing they all share: they must be broken for there to be a story. Only a shattered promise yields a rich, glittering yolk of a tale.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride

“In the end, a fairy tale is nothing more than a sense of hope. Hope lures and tricks. It tempts with shining thrones, exquisite nectars, and loving arms. It whispers to us that we are extraordinary. Exempt. Thus lured, we follow its path. Sometimes we are led to riches. Other times, we are led astray. But this hope never hides its shape, and for its honesty we reach for it and pull its sweet and stinking furs up to our chins, for to live without it means living without magic.”
― Roshani Chokshi, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride